“By the way,” she said, as we were going out of the door, “have you heard who it was walked around your place the other night? Well, now, to think I should have forgotten to mention it, but it was no one, after all, but the policeman! My husband was over to the police-station this morning about that mare we’ve lost, and he mentioned it; and, sure enough, the policeman had got it down in his book that he crossed the hill by our road that night, and had looked over your house.” And then I remembered that there was a police-station in the next village, that did duty for a very wide area of miles. And it was usual for the policeman to patrol from one village to another, by various routes, last thing at night, ascertaining if the inhabitants’ doors _en route_ were all duly locked. We were much relieved in our minds, and started for home discussing the situation, when Virginia suddenly said— “Surely that is our dog barking further along the lane?” We paused to listen. “Yes, it is,” I said in surprise. “Whatever can he be doing out here?” and we hurried on; for the dog is a valuable one, and is never let out without an escort. A turn in the lane brought us face to face with a tall, familiar masculine figure. “Why, wherever have you come from?” I exclaimed. “I’ve just made my escape from the tame lunatic who seems to be in charge of the cottage,” said the Head of Affairs cheerfully, as he relieved Ursula of the quart of milk. “And I would suggest, my dear, that the next time you propose to turn your house into a sanatorium for ‘Mentally Deficients,’ you might give your family due notice. A shock like that isn’t good for one after climbing such a hill.” * * * * * And he might not have been particularly mollified when, later in the evening, Eileen offered the following apology:— “I’m very sorry, sir, that I kept you waiting outside all that time in the cold; only how was I to know you were a gentleman, sir, when you looked so _exactly_ like a burglar?” But, fortunately, in the interval he had discovered, in his dressing-room, a new-but-forgotten pair of boots, and a not-at-all-bad-considering-it’s-war-time overcoat; and, naturally, he was inclined to take a roseate view of life. XI Exit Eileen IT was six months later, and about as broiling a Sunday afternoon as London can produce. Virginia and I were reading in the coolest spot in the garden, when Abigail came out and announced, with slight acidity, “That young person wants to know if she can see you, madam. I told her you were engaged, but she said she would wait.” “What is her name?” I queried; there are so many young persons in the world. “That Eileen!” she answered, this time with a definite sniff. “She can come out here,” I said, and forthwith there sailed across the lawn a vision such as never before had graced my garden.